Rs 162.5 million for Chandigarh solar city project

According to reports, a sum of Rs 16.25 crore has been allocated to UT administration for implementation of Model Solar City Programme. Ministry for new and renewable energy has already chosen Chandigarh as one of the cities to be developed into a solar city. Six rooftop solar photovoltaic power plants have been set up with power generation capacity of 975KW.

Though, The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) had chalked out the broad outline in 2009, work on ground could not begin as the proposal was pending with the ministry of new and renewable energy for allocation of funds. According to the plan, a 25 Mega Watts solar photo voltaic (PV) plant would also be set up. As of now, UT has no electricity generation of its own. In its pre-feasibility report, TERI has identified 24 of the total 900 small and big parks being maintained by the municipal corporation, which could be looked as potential locations for tapping solar power.

TERI has recommended that rooftop areas of car parking bays in central markets of all sectors could also be effectively used for this purpose. The parking area of Sukhna Lake, Rock Garden, and the railway station can be productive places for setting up the solar plant.

The estimation of area and annual cost has been done using the efficient variants of solar cell having efficiency of 14.3%. The power plants of the capacity of 1MW can be segmented in small plants of minimum 250kW capacity, but at the same location. Hence, small gardens and parks are not considered in the action plan.

The estimated cost of power generation from solar PV is in the range of Rs 15-20/kWh depending on size of the system. This results in consumers being charged more per unit.